Russel, don't tell me that ! I'm working in a physics research institute !

> But many people led interesting lives trying.

And could be happyest than the rest...all major discovers on this world
where done by mistake by such people...

>
> There is a place for people to discover what the laws of physics REALLY are
> (until someone else rediscovers something different yet again) but MOST of
> the power from water / motors that run themselves / conspiracy theory
> government hiding the facts people just lack reasonable rigour or a
> reasonable sense of reasoning. Some few don't
>
Have you feel oldest today than usual ? [inocent grin]

> Heat pumps of course DO allow efficiencies of > 100% :-)

Not in usual way... If a heating pumps eat 4KW of electric power
(for a pressure pump) and gaves 2KW of electricity and steam from
5 Celcius degree water, something is special there.
I have no time to argue about physics low. Usual you have right.
But I can point you about some interesting experiment on the web which
does not respect the physics low as we know.
If you don't believe me, do some research on the web. This pump was
invented by russian guy called Potapov and others guy from Los Alamos
laboratory where happy to test and to buy ( as I know) the prototype.
If you need more details I can point you directly to the guy who
intermediate the whole job with russians and americans because he is
romanian.

Not in usual way... If a heating pumps eat 4KW of electric power
(for a pressure pump) and gaves 2KW of electricity and steam from
5 Celcius degree water, something is special there.

Not "heating pumps" - "Heat pumps"; like in a refrigerator. You move heat
from one place to another, using "some" energy, but you get heat output
greater than the power you put in to move the heat... Nearly always used
for refrigeration and air conditioning (pump heat OUT of the part you want
cold), and sometimes for heating as well (when the difference between the
external temperature and the desired internal temperature is relatively
small.) IIRC, "efficiency factors" on the order of 4 (4W heat moved for
each watt of power consumed) are pretty common.

> > Heat pumps of course DO allow efficiencies of > 100% :-)
>
> Not in usual way... If a heating pumps eat 4KW of electric power
> (for a pressure pump) and gaves 2KW of electricity and steam from
> 5 Celcius degree water, something is special there.
>
> Not "heating pumps" - "Heat pumps"; like in a refrigerator. You move heat

Undoubtedly we are talking about different things, and this is because
of my pour english. Sorry.
Vasile

> IIRC, "efficiency factors" on the order of 4 (4W heat moved for
> each watt of power consumed) are pretty common.

That must be some rule of thumb for particular situations only. The Carnot
(sp?) efficiency describes the best case conversion of a temperature
difference to re-usable energy. Carnot efficiency = (HOT - COLD) / HOT,
where HOT and COLD are the two temperatures on an absolute linear scale,
like Kelvin. This same efficiency fraction works to your advantage in a
heat pump because you are using its reciprocal. If the Carnot efficiency is
20%, then a perfectly efficient heat pump can move 5 times the heat for the
energy put into it. You can see that this heat pump "gain" factor (1 /
Carnot) gets very high as HOT gets close to COLD. This is also why heat
pumps used to heat homes switch to resistive heating when the outside
temperature gets too cold. The greater temperature difference causes the
Carnot efficiency to go up, which causes the heat pump gain to go down.
Because the heat pump is made from real motors, etc, it never achieves the
maximum theoretical gain. The real gain eventually drops below 1 at some
outside temperature. This is usually around 0F for commercial heat pump
heaters.